Do not read beyond this point if you do not want major plot/item/everything spoilers.

---

Total Play Time:
56h 42m

Overall impressions:
Amazing game with a huge variety of things to do, challenging dungeons and enemies, and unique items. Its departure from some of the classic Zelda conventions are very welcome, and some other departures were not quite so welcome.

The Good:-Breaks Away From Classic Formula
The game really feels fresh in a lot of ways, and you may be surprised how much they decided to change instead of being tied to the same old formula of past games.-Enemies are actually difficult.
Hearts and battle strategy matter. There's a real chance you could die in battle if you're not careful, so you need to power up your life meter and swing your sword smartly.-Stores/Rupees matter!
Pointless stores and items have sadly been a staple of the Zelda series since Link to the Past. No longer. Rupees are harder to come by and the things they buy are truly useful.-Upgrading your gear/adventure pack.
This adds a whole new layer of fun and complexity to item collection and has a meaningful impact on your gameplay.-Epic bosses, and plenty of them.
Inventive bosses that require focus and can be quite challenging.-Very long.
You'll be playing this game for a while. Just when you think it is wrapping up, there's more!-Visually beautiful.
Not everybody may be on board with the painterly shader they chose to use, but the environments, characters, and effects are beautiful regardless.-Environments are Large and Detailed
The environments in this game are beautiful well detailed. One thing I really liked was that many of them (especially the Hyrule provinces) are very large, continuous areas of map that you can explore without hitting loading screens. You can even view some of them in their entirety from stunning, high-up vantage points which is always a hard thing to pull off in a 3D game.-Characters are likable/not freaky as shit.
Strange, unlikable characters pop up in Zelda games a little too often.. especially the N64 titles. In this game, the NPCs are all pretty likable with humorous designs while never going over the top into the territory of garish caricatures.-Triforce Dungeon
Actually collecting the Triforce was awesome, and that last dungeon that you have to find it in was really clever. Some of the other dungeons were pretty linear, and this one was very non-linear. You had to think a bit!-Beautiful music/Orchestrated music
I'll have more to say on the music later, but much of it is undeniably beautiful. Furthermore, many tracks are orchestrated (finally!) and sound superb.-References to Zelda chronology
There's actually not as much fan service in Skyward Sword as I expected, but there are still quite a few fun hints towards the Zelda timeline and future Zelda titles. Demise's final speech really hit home and sets the stage for the endless battle between good and evil that is The Legend of Zelda series.-Moving plot
The pacing was a little uneven at times, but at the end of the day, Skyward Sword had a strong, compelling story that takes plenty of twists and turns.-Fun Items
Plenty of items to collect, and each is used well with some pretty unique items in the mix.-Reconnaissance Beetle
The beetle was easily my favorite item, and I used it everywhere.-Humor
There's plenty of genuinely funny humor in this game, which is something that helps set the game apart and make it memorable.-Lots of Sidequests
There were tons of things to do outside of the main quest, and it really helped to make the game feel like a beefy adventure.-Variety of Gameplay
Playing through Skyward Sword exposes you to a huge variety of types of gameplay. You fly, you run on ground, you swim, you have outdoor puzzle areas, you have indoor dungeons, you have escort missions, you sail a boat, you have delivery missions, you go skydiving, you have target hitting games, you fight bosses in a variety of situations, you have stressful stealth missions in the Silent Realm, and more.

The Not-So-Good:-Pacing Was Sometimes Uneven
There were maybe three or four chains of cinematic sequences containing huge story movements. While they were very satisfying, they came rather late in the game. You go through most of the game knowing really nothing about who your foe is, what the threat is, and who this often-mentioned Goddess is.-So Much Hate for Fi
In my opinion, Fi is hands down the worst companion character in a Zelda game. She was almost entirely useless, and had no redeeming character qualities. Her clues always came late (and usually popped up annoyingly while I was heading towards a puzzle solution anyway), her advice was unwanted (every single time your hearts are low, her advice icon lights up and blinks, and if you select her, she tells you your hearts are low and you should get more hearts. REALLY?!), and her main function seemed to be repeating whatever was just said by another character, but with an arbitrary probability value thrown in. That joke got old the first time she did it. Furthermore, she had no character whatsoever, and no character development, either. She was an annoyance from the very beginning to the very end.-Entirely Unmemorable Soundtrack
The music in Skyward Sword was beautiful, but almost entirely unmemorable. Almost all of the tracks are moody, ambient pieces with no core melody to back them up. The only memorable songs were the classic Zelda tunes that were included (Fairy fountain theme, Zelda's Lullaby, Overworld theme)! Again, the music was not bad. It was beautiful and enjoyable, but also unmemorable. That was a real disappointment for me.-"Island" Style Overworld
For me, Zelda games are at their best when they have a beautiful overworld to explore, filled with secrets to discover. Unfortunately, Skyloft is made in the same "island" style overworld that is used in Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks. In this style, the adventuring takes place on a few medium-to-small-sized pockets of overworld scattered across a large expanse mostly void of things to do. Flying is pretty fun, but I feel a good overworld is really the backbone of a strong Zelda adventure.-Hyrule Sections Play Like Puzzle Obstacle Courses
The portions of gameplay that take place under the clouds on the landmass that will become Hyrule do not make up an overworld in the classic Zelda sense either. They instead play like large puzzle-based obstacle courses. They are beautiful, fun, and challenging, but simply not the overworld I always hope for.-Not Always the Best Controls
They went to town with the motion controls in this game, and while sometimes its engaging and fun, other times it could be too much. The Wii Motion Plus-based tracking of your cursor on the screen could take some getting used to, and you have to recenter it a lot. I also felt like rolling items (e.g. bombs) was difficult and I had to tilt my remote way far downward, passed what was comfortable to do. I additionally found it frustrating when a tense battle would be playing out and the game would misread my swing on an enemy where it matters, usually resulting in me taking damage.
Also, in most 3D Zelda games, pressing the button an item is equipped to will use the item, and pressing the A button will put that item away. In Skyward Sword, it was exactly opposite. This caused so much frustration for me, and even after 50+ hours of playing, I would still sometimes end up putting away the item I wanted to use, and accidentally equipping something else (usually a bomb, which I would then blow myself up with).-Shields Were Pretty Useless
Simply not intuitive enough to use, not useful enough when they were used, and costly to maintain/upgrade.-No Cucoos?!
Hard to believe that there was not a single cucoo in this game. A silly thing to get hung up on, maybe, but they were missed.

Conclusion:
I loved Skyward Sword, and feel Nintendo made some big strides in improving the series instead of being tied to old conventions. However, some other decisions they made left me feeling rather disappointed. Regardless, I really enjoyed playing it and think it is a superb game.

You hit home on everything I liked and disliked about the game. I was really anticipating seeing like.. a gerudo race without a malicious king, or more sheikahs, and stuff like that, but I did like the game. The fetch quests got really old after a while, and left me groaning, wondering if it would ever end.

My favorite "dungeon" would be the Pirate ship. It sincerely felt like an adventure as opposed to just being "a game"... I dunno, that's kind of hard for me to explain. I loved all the characters in Skyloft. The effort they put into the characters' personalities was great. That final battle looked gorgeous even if it was quick (and extremely difficult). I'll have more to say later, but these are my thoughts right now.

Also, there is an unbreakable shield that looks just like the Hylian shield. You just have to complete a boss rush mode with the Thunder God. I haven't tried but I had to read up on that, because I was wondering why it was in the concept art but not the game. Good luck if you try to get it, if you haven't already started hero mode!

You hit home on everything I liked and disliked about the game. I was really anticipating seeing like.. a gerudo race without a malicious king, or more sheikahs, and stuff like that, but I did like the game. The fetch quests got really old after a while, and left me groaning, wondering if it would ever end.

My favorite "dungeon" would be the Pirate ship. It sincerely felt like an adventure as opposed to just being "a game"... I dunno, that's kind of hard for me to explain. I loved all the characters in Skyloft. The effort they put into the characters' personalities was great. That final battle looked gorgeous even if it was quick (and extremely difficult). I'll have more to say later, but these are my thoughts right now.

Also, there is an unbreakable shield that looks just like the Hylian shield. You just have to complete a boss rush mode with the Thunder God. I haven't tried but I had to read up on that, because I was wondering why it was in the concept art but not the game. Good luck if you try to get it, if you haven't already started hero mode!

The really innovative thing about this as a Zelda game, the motion-control swordplay, was easily the greatest thing about it. For something that sounded like I would just adapt to it quickly and forget there was anything special about it, actually being in control of the sword continued to be an extremely enjoyable way to fight, as well as charging up a Skyward Strike for unique types of beam shots depending on how you swung, and the use of the shield where necessary. It's true that this did invite some repetitive enemy designs that centered around just swinging a particular way to defeat them, and there were times when the lack of total precision of the motion controls made it hard to do the exact type of swing exactly when you needed it (the forward thrust was the worst - second-to-last boss, amirite?), but for the most part it kept the raw swordplay element much more engaging than in other 3D Zelda games. Other uses of motion controls for things like flying, swimming, and aiming unique weapons (especially the ****ing bow, hell yes best bow ever) were also completely excellent. It's just too bad that, I'm sorry to say, these really good controls came around in perhaps the most underwhelming 3D Zelda I have ever played.

I'm not going to say too much about this stuff because Kao already touched on basically all of it, but things that really dragged this game down compared to other Zeldas, even worse than the now-second-most-bland-one Twilight Princess, were the lack of a deep and immersive world to explore, the generally bad storytelling, the linear, non-challenging dungeons and the absolute worst sidekick Link's ever had. There was just not enough unique content in this game; four stupid little areas started to feel extremely cramped by the time I had been forced to return to them three ****ing times each, going through the same paces in the same zones over and over. Not only did I feel the "obstacle course" effect that Kao did, I also have never been lead by the hand so much in any other Nintendo game I've played. Both Fi and sudden little cutscenes kept telling me things I'd figured out anywhere from a moment prior to half the game ago, no matter where I was and what I was trying to do, breaking up the action and making the entire game just feel cheap. There is a Shieka Stone in skyloft that will ****ing tell you how to do everything in the ****ing game if you want to go talk to it. I don't know what was with the android motif with Fi, but it was completely unexplainable that she would somehow act and speak that way, and she expressed even less of a character than Navi did, and it became less tolerable with every hour spent.

The weird, jarring PLOT BURST style of pacing was another measure of keeping the game from being immersive as you quickly forgot the significance of what you were doing or the world you were playing in, but despite this, the story was pretty good. Having Link and Zelda be predestined to be born according to a design the Goddess was weaving into reality was a pretty cool twist that felt pretty profound compared to most Zelda games' "okay take the sword, now you're a hero." I even ended up thinking Ghirahim was kind of cool as I found out what exactly he was supposed to be. Even if Demise ended up being kind of a terrible cookie-cutter "SO FOOLISH MORTAL YOU THINK YOU CAN FACE ME I WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING ONCE I'M THROUGH WITH YOU" sort of character as a villain, all of the endgame stuff was really fantastic.

In whole, it's very playable and altogether enjoyable, I guess it's just easier for the bad stuff to stick out in your mind afterwards.

First, it was a hard game to play. I mean, since some time, Zelda games were kinda....easy, but not because enemies, but because they always told you what to do. In this one, lot of times I found myself lost, even looking for my target with Fi.

Then, some bosses were really hard to fight. I mean, they had the "If you don't hit me with the sword this way, you won't hurt me even if you keep hitting me". I had to put my hand in some weird positions to beat some of them XDDD.

The story tells a lot of details in other Zelda's games (SPOILERS FROM HERE!)

The last enemy, Demise, for me it's clear that he's the first incarnation of Ganondorf, who curse you to fight against him for the eternity, incarnation after incarnation, descendant after descendant. And that's what he does in the rest of the games.
Also, I found an explanation with this for something I saw in Zelda: Ocarina of Time's manga. When Ganondorf sees Link for the first time, when he's with Zelda (In the manga, Ganondorf is not in the hall with the king, but with Zelda and Link, and talks with them) he gives a Link a weird look, like if he was thinking something like "It's him!!".

Also, what I found more awesome was the creation of the Master Sword, and the way that Link was claimed his one and only owner. This could explain why in the rest of the games only Link can take the Master Sword out of its pedestal.

And well, I think I'm gonna stop for now with theories, and start to tell about how the game was itself, after reading your comments OwO.

What I like:

Difficult bosses: YESZ!!! You can't beat them by just hitting your sword or going crazy around them, you have to think about how to fight them >w<!.

New Items: I really like that there's not only the bow or shield or only bombs, but a lot of new items. For me, one of the most useful was the bug thing. I really like how it was able to take bombs and throw them over enemies or things.

Amazing scenes and music

Hard dungeons and situations, when you have to think before act. Also, I loved the "Past - present" thin in the desert. It was really nice to see both moments, how it was in the past, different from the present.

And a lot more of thing.

What I didn't like that much...

Too many dungeons: Maybe sometimes it wasn't required a dungeon to do something. Ok with the flames, the fountains, and the pieces of the Triforce, but there was some times that a dungeon wasn't required to get something.

The Goddess tests: I have a trauma with them, OKAY??? XDD

The wii motion dependence: I know, it's awesome that Link's sword goes the ways we put the controller, but sometimes it gets uncoordinated, and you have to pause the game, press the down button, and go again to the game, only to find that Link if having his sword in a very weird way (sometimes, I had the wii motion in the normal way, and Link was scratching his back with the sword)

And....for now, nothing more. I just beat the game 2-3 days ago, so I'll try to remember more OwO.

__________________
DAH!!! Why I had to choose a day with the number 9 to join?! This will pursue me for the rest of my life......

In all seriousness, as obviously as the game seemed to imply that Demise is the ancestor of all Ganons throughout the series, I really hate the idea and will probably do my best to forget it. Namely because,

1. Demise was perfectly fine as a stand-alone villain

2. Takes credibility away from all those other Ganons, who themselves sometimes had contextual political motivations and individual character traits that made them compelling without any kind of need for a "destiny" reaching back to an otherwise irrelevant "past" game. Especially when that "prequel" game doesn't hold a candle to those other games.

3. LOL PREQUEL BACKSTORY FLESHING OUT THE SERIES always feels stupid and cheap and is bad writing.

I was just giving a theory, only that...phew, I thought I was going to get eaten....

Just kidding XD.
Maybe you are right, maybe I'm right, who knows? I think they just left it in this way for us to think what we want, and give our own theories about this character or the game itself.
Also, for me, it's still like I said, because if the goddess Hylia was able to reincarnate in Zelda, a human, why not Demise? OwO.

__________________
DAH!!! Why I had to choose a day with the number 9 to join?! This will pursue me for the rest of my life......

Well...yes, you are right in some parts. And I think they never prepared Ganondorf or Ganon to have story before thei existence (specially in OoT, where Ganondorf is supposed to be born and exists for the first time)

__________________
DAH!!! Why I had to choose a day with the number 9 to join?! This will pursue me for the rest of my life......

I agree with you on Demise, Linko, to a certain extent. Saying that all the great Zelda villains of timeless classics like Ocarina of Time tie back to this one character kind of feels cheap, especially since he's revealed and then killed all within the last 15 minutes of the game.

At the same time, you could consider things instead from the perspective that Demise simply represents unfiltered hatred and the worst qualities of human nature. That evil may be undying (just as the good of humanity is undying), and thus this battle between good and evil is destined to play out for all time. So if you take the whole thing in a more metaphorical sense, I think it's actually a kind of cool revelation.

I did like Demise. I wish they had brought him out sooner. Again, I feel the pacing on this game was pretty odd at times.

I agree with you on Demise, Linko, to a certain extent. Saying that all the great Zelda villains of timeless classics like Ocarina of Time tie back to this one character kind of feels cheap, especially since he's revealed and then killed all within the last 15 minutes of the game.

At the same time, you could consider things instead from the perspective that Demise simply represents unfiltered hatred and the worst qualities of human nature. That evil may be undying (just as the good of humanity is undying), and thus this battle between good and evil is destined to play out for all time. So if you take the whole thing in a more metaphorical sense, I think it's actually a kind of cool revelation.

I did like Demise. I wish they had brought him out sooner. Again, I feel the pacing on this game was pretty odd at times.

Ok, I think I like more your theory than mine x3.
And I'm agree in one thing with you two: they could let him appear sooner than only in the end after being a huge ugly beast with jelly nails and snowboard skills.

__________________
DAH!!! Why I had to choose a day with the number 9 to join?! This will pursue me for the rest of my life......

Just finished it. I basically agree with all of Kao's points. There are a few "AAUGH! WHY!?" parts of the game but overall it was very fun. One thing I liked most about it is the motion controls, the new items and puzzles made good use of it and didn't feel gimmicky (as I would have expected). I did think it started to get tedious in the latter part of the game where you collect the song of heroes, being the third time you have to visit each of the provinces. The final battle and aftermath had some good tie-ins to the rest of the series.